Effective Teaching: Synthesis or Originality

Author(s): Michael Anello

Source: Improving College and University Teaching, Vol. 16, No. 3, Encouraging and
Appraising Teaching Quality (Summer, 1968), pp. 174-175
Published by: Heldref Publications
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27562825
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Effective

Teaching:

consists in re
to
and again

Real

originality
turning
again

to an Asso

according

origins,

ciate Professor
cation, Boston
Seton

Hall;

Edu

ofHigher
College

U.A.,

(B.S.,

Ph.D.,

musical
English
styles. Beethoven's
style reveals
on the
the freedom of the Romantic
based
period
influenced
style of Haydn.
Chopin's melody was
of
by the Italian composer, Bellini. The music
Richard

ANELLO

is some evidence that there is among col

and university
teachers the fallacious no
lege
There
tion that effective
teaching must be original and
unorthodox
and should not conform to the ideas,
form

of

The

others.

stems

notion

perhaps

from graduate
school study where
the student is
to produce original work,1 or perhaps
exhorted
the

from

The

pressure

and

search

on

placed

publication
is carried

notion

on

into

ideas.

original

classroom

the

re

for

professors

based

in a

and,

not
to seem
the
attempt
imitative,
desperate
teacher finds himself
in a perpetual
struggle be
tween the two extremes
of imitation and origi

The

of

of

radium

nal

constantly
or
presents

interpretations

finds his

subject waning

students

irretrievably

seek new

perspectives

more

But

struggles
untried

and

lost.

true

of his
must

scholar

to be sure.

subject,

he must

important,

know

origi

concepts

the attention

The

in his

for

the

the salient
facts which
have been ac
together
cumulated by the scholars who have come before
him. The great men of the world, many of them
teachers,

in

possessed

clear

dramatic

and

primarily preoccupied
in summing
interested
before

special

to synthesize

the power

sessed

charisma;

they

pos

a body of knowledge

fashion.

They

were

not

originality. They wrere

up what had been done

with

them.

in the fine arts and the dis

The masterpieces
coveries in the sciences have all been the results of
of knowledge
years of accumulation
by many
the culmination of the Baroque
scholars. In music,
in the wrorks of Bach and
period is represented
each of whom perfected musical styles and
Handel,
forms
on

rather

the works

Kotter,
incredible

than
of

new

inventing
unknowns:

and Kleber.
amalgamation

ones.

Hofhaimer,

Their
of

works
Italian,

Salk.

reflected

radioactive
to treat

factors

known

are

there

was

crowned

splitting

by

of
and

substances,
some
cancer,

can

similar

to produce
of
the
work

scientists

The

folk

the

the atom,
the
be

application
to the
traced

that

were

to make

important

them

were

personalities

for

responsible

much

of

the preliminary
spade work, but the power of
and summing up what had been done
culminating
before was accomplished
by those endowed with
genius.

special

The

innovators

are

the

small

men

who set the ball rolling. The big men come at the
end of a period and sum it up.2
The world's
dramatist was William
greatest
His
genius did not lie in writing
Shakespeare.
original plots. All of his material was borrowed
from

chronicles,

biographies,

prose,

and

histories,

lies in the
plays already well known. His greatness
capacity to grasp the important elements of a plot,
of human
bringing to it a profound understanding
nature,

rich

quality

of

and

characterization,

an

imaginative mind. The plot of one of the most

long standing plays on Broadway, My Fair Lady,
was a direct steal from George Bernard
Shaw's
turn
which
in
Shaw
had
Pygmalion,
adapted from
In both cases there was no
Greek mythology.
creative pro
originality of plot, but a delightfully
duction.

Arthur Schlesinger
in A Thousand Days nar
rates the influences which
led to the rise of Presi
dent Kennedy.
It was Adlai Stevenson who set the
tone for the New Frontier
in
and who assisted

built
They
B?chner,

German,

of Wagner.

leaders in their work. None were wholly original

to society the highest perfec
but each contributed
tion of knowledge
in his field. In each case, un

to draw

how

work

the

work of the French

scientists, Henri
Becquerel
and Marie
and Pierre Curie. Each of these per
sonalities had a special talent for bringing together

a
who

teacher

on

technology
of many

work

vaccine

use

nality.
The

and

science

analogies.
a
polio

Johannes

or

rests

Strauss

In

style,

Originality

made use of English

Ralph Vaughn Williams
tunes and styles in writing
his symphonies.

Cor

nell).

By MICHAEL

or

Synthesis

transforming

the Democratic

party

and

establish

built his own

ing a philosophy on which Kennedy
ideas. His summons to the young, his demand for
new ideas, his respect for the people who had them,

an
and
174

EFFECTIVE

TEACHING:

SYNTHESIS

OR ORIGINALITY

call for strong public

leadership3 were not
but he brought these ideas
original with Kennedy,
together in a manner which gave his short tenure
a distinct style.
his

Last

year,

Professor

Peter

the

Odegard,

others. In his lecture he embodied all the charac

teristics of the culminator.
Effective
teaching embodies the kind of schol
arship that takes the scholar back to the roots of
his discipline, making him aware that the only real
lies in returning again and again the
originality

na

tionally known political scientist from the Univer

sity of California at Berkeley, was visiting lecturer
at our university. Several of my students taking his
course remarked that Professor Odegard was one
of the more skillful lecturers on campus. Having
heard of his television
lectures and the national
impact they had, I decided to visit his class. I noted
a style and technique similar to what has already
been described in this journal by Davis.4 Odegard
kept his lecture simple and presented an abundance
of

pertinent

There

examples.

was,

however,

175

to

source,

the

first

of

stage

existence.

of scholarship
all, is the real meaning
the
of
the
teacher-scholar.
goal
fully

1The
stress original re
graduate catalogs of most universities
for the Ph.D. For example, the graduate
search as a requirement
school of arts and sciences at Boston College requires that doctoral
or enlarge a sig
candidates must "demonstrate
ability to modify
nificant subject in a thesis based on original research."
2
The Making
Ralph Vaughn Williams,
of Music, New York :
Cornell University
Press, 1965.
3Arthur
A Thousand Days,
Boston : Houghton
Schlesinger,
Mifflin Company, 1965, pg. 23.
4Robert
"Secrets of Master Lecturers,"
Davis,
Improving Col
lege and University
Teaching, Vol. XIII, No. 3, pg. 150.

fur

In His Work
art

is

the

expression

of

the mind

of

a great

and

man,

mean

art, that of the want of mind of a weak man. A foolish person builds
and a wise one sensibly; a virtuous one, beautifully ; and a
foolishly,
vicious one, basely. If stone work is well put together, it means that a
thoughtful man planned it, and a careful man cut it, and an honest man
cemented

it has

it. If

too much

it means

ornament,

that

its

carver

was

or
too greedy of pleasure;
if too little, that he was rude, or insensitive,
stupid, and the like. So that when once you have learned to spell these
most precious of all legends,?pictures
and buildings,?you
may read
the

characters

of men,

as in a microscope,
comes passionate
meanest

delights.

and

of

in

nations,

their

art,

as

in a mirror;

nay,

a hundredfold;
and magnified
for the character be
in the art, and intensifies itself in all its noblest and
Nay,

not

only

as

in

microscope,

but

as

under

scalpel, and in dissection;

for a man may hide himself from you,
to you, every other way;
but he cannot in
misrepresent
himself
work:
there, be sure, you have him to the inmost. All that he likes,
that he can do,?his
his affections,
that he sees,?all
imagination,
perseverance,
there"

his

impatience,

his

after

and hope

References

ther revelation. He did not attempt new theories;

he introduced
ideas in clear fashion,
drawing
from
the
laid before him by
examples
knowledge

"(Great

This,

clumsiness,
RUSKIN
The Queen

cleverness,

of

the Air

everything

or
his
all
his
is